Apps of the Week: Player FM, Allthecooks Recipes, UpTo Calendar and more!

Those of us here in the states have been enjoying our fair share of barbecue food, tasty beverages and fireworks, but that doesn't mean we didn't have time to put together our Apps of the Week column this fine Saturday afternoon. There's nothing particularly patriotic about this week's picks, though — we've just continued our weekly showcase of apps that the writers here at Android Central are currently using.

This week features a new way to listen to podcasts, a weather app, a calendar replacement and a few other great picks. Read along and see the apps we picked this week — you may just find a few that meet your needs.

Phil Nickinson - Player FM

Player FM has been around a while, but it wasn't on my radar until it was included in the first batch of Android Wear apps. And what you get is a good podcatcher with some really good discoverability features. You tell it the kind of things you like — Android, tech, news, sports, whatever — and it serves up a heaping helping of content. You can litem to individual podcasts at will, subscribe to full shows at your leisure — and you really should subscribe to ours if you hasn't already — plus you can launch podcasts right from your Android Wear watch. This podcatcher absolutely is worth a look.

Jerry Hildenbrand - Allthecooks Recipes

I like to cook. I'm not very good at it, but I can turn out something edible and a have a lot of fun doing it. So I'm going to continue in the hopes that one day I'll be as good as those slick guys on television, with all the fancy cutting and stirring and chopping. For now, I have to follow a recipe from someone who knows what they are doing — my anise and peanut butter flavored pound cake was a disaster. For this, I love the latest version of Allthecooks Recipes.

You have the same great recipes from folks who know how to create great food, done in the same easy to navigate way. The social aspect is still there, you can follow a favorite and see what they're cooking, and it's a great way to eat healthy if that's what you're looking for. It's really a feature-rich and very well-done lifestyle application. The latest update pushes it over the edge and brings my "killer feature" — I can send a recipe right to my Gear Live where it's right on my wrist while I cook. When you're not really sure what you're doing in the kitchen, this is great. It's also a really good example of how a wearable device can extend the experience of an app.

If you're planning on picking up a new Android Wear device (or already have one) and like to fiddle around in the kitchen a little bit, you should give Allthecooks Recipes a try.

Alex Dobie - Better DashClock Widget

Roman Nurik's excellent DashClock widget isn't just a really great app, it's also open-source, meaning other developers are free to learn from the code and build upon it. That's what "Better DashClock" does, keeping the same functionality of the original app (including extension support), but with a whole bunch of new customisation options that let you change even more about the way your widget looks. You can tweak font sizes, colors, opacity and more, which is great if you're using the widget on a larger device, or in a launcher with an unusual grid layout like the LG G3.

Better DashClock Widget is free to download and try for 24 hours. After that you'll need to pay $1.29 to unlock it permanently.

Richard Devine - 1Weather

1Weather isn't a new app, but this week it became one of the first Android apps of any type to offer Android Wear support. The latest version will let you check out the weather forecasts right from your wrist and for that alone it's worth taking a look at if you're eagerly awaiting your shiny new toy.

If you don't yet have an Android Wear smartwatch, you'll not be disappointed by it, either. It's been around for some time now but it looks great on both phones and tablets and has just about every piece of weather forecasting information you'd ever want. It'll not be the only Android Wear weather app that comes along, but overall it's certainly going to be one of the best.

Simon Sage - Eliss Infinity

Eliss Infinity is a simple retro action game where players need to drag colored planets into target zones before the screen gets too cramped with new ones appearing. Every planet can be stacked on with like-colored ones to make it bigger, or split apart to become smaller, which is necessary to fit within the different target areas that pop up randomly. If different-colored planets are touching one another, it will take a bite out of your health, and of course if you lose too much health, it's game over. There's a campaign with a 25 levels, and an extremely challenging infinity mode. Though the gameplay is simple, the frantic pace and minimal wireframe graphics are a great hook.

Andrew Martonik - UpTo Calendar

I'm generally a fan of using the standard Google Calendar app and widget, but considering the number of calendars that I have to manage I've looked into a few different options. UpTo Calendar is an interesting concept as it helps you see just what you want while also having access to a vast number of shared calendars that are easy to see when you need them, and hide them when you don't. The interface is nice and simple (as you want in a calendar app), showing just your main calendars, but you can then pinch-and-zoom on each day to see a selection of shared calendars worked in amongst your main views. You can add sports teams, friends' shared calendars and community-managed calendars of all sorts, making this more than just a standard calendar display.

I can't guarantee that it's going to be my go-to calendar for a long period of time, but right now it's working out pretty well.

For all those people that complained last week about the format of the page, notice that this week is different. We'll see whether or not it stays but for now I hope all of you show your gratitude for AC listening to your complaints and say thank you.

Yeah that's a shame, I'd have given it a go otherwise. I've started getting into Sunrise recently, but this looks really good. The addition of TV episode names etc seems cool. I presume that can be done in Sunrise/Google calendar if someone bothers to make a list? But,

If anyone has any questions, feedback, etc., please don't hesitate to reach out to us directly support@upto.com. We love our users & want to hear from you! If you want to learn more about the UpTo calendar, go to http://upto.com or check out this short vid: http://youtu.be/x4JsVxkMpyc. Thanks!

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by the Android Open Source Project
and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License. AndroidCentral is an independent site
that is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.